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Investigating the role of the urban village within 'neo-traditional' urbanism, existing studies focus on flagship projects such as Poundbury. By contrast, this thesis explores the under-researched everyday and mainstream developments undertaken by volume house builders. These developments are not associated with a philanthropic disregard for profit, nor are they showcases for urban theories such as the urban village movement. Through an intensive investigation of one urban village: Grand Union Village (GUV) in Ealing, West London this thesis tracks the development process from conception in 1999 to completion in 2011. It maps the compromises made along the journey resulting from conflicting relationships within the developer, volume house builder Taylor Woodrow. Utilising research drawn from unprecedented access to the development team and original Vision documents, the thesis examines the 'macro-environmental' elements of the Grand Union Vision, which were guided by urban village principles. The 'micro-environment' is examined through the design details, and textures of the built environment which informed the way a sense of place and experience were scripted into GUV. Furthermore, experiential qualities of GUV are explored through walking interviews considering the 'after-life' of the Village and the relationship between design and the lived reality of place. To conclude, this thesis demonstrates how the conflict between the drive for profit and desire to implement urban village principles could not be reconciled at GUV resulting in a development that is more akin to a large housing estate than an urban village. Whilst the sensory and experiential design details of GUV set it apart from normal suburban housing, such details are superficial and will diminish over time. Furthermore, within a suburban setting, the ambiguities of theorising the urban and the village prove problematic, and residents transgress and resist key urban village elements. As such wider attitudes towards suburban urban village developments need to change to allow true urban villages to be delivered.

There is an increasing public and academic interest in the environmental qualities of urban open spaces. The study in this thesis focuses on soundscape research in urban open spaces, which is within the paradigm of environmental psychology. It explores how to use the results of soundscape research in aiding the design process of urban open spaces with regard to the sonic environment. It is based on common notions that the acoustic aspect of urban open spaces should be considered in the same way as the visual dimensions. The determinant of a soundscape is subjective evaluations, which depend on two acoustic aspects; one is the sound nois~ scales and the other is the effects of various . sound sources. Based on data collected from a series of field studies and laboratory experiments, the subjective evaluations of sound-level and sound preference have been separately studied using statistical analyses, and the overall evaluations of sounds cape and acoustic comfort have been examined. In 9rder to provide a feasible tool to aid soundscape deigns, the study develops a modelling tool, namely artificial neural network (ANN), to present the subjective evaluations of potential users at the design stage. Based on the ANN models, soundscape maps can be produced. The results of statistical analyses suggest that various factors influencing the subjective evaluations of sound level, sound preference and acoustic comfort are different in terms of a variation among case study sites and noticed sounds. Generally speaking, sound physical and psychological characteristics have the most influence on the subjective evaluations. The subjective evaluations of other physical environments are also much relevant to the soundscape evaluations, whereas socialldemographical and behavioural factors are insignificant although some relationships have been found for certain factors. In addition to giving useful guidelines and information to soundscape research and design, the results are also crucial in selecting input variables for ANN prediction models. For ANN model predictions, it is found that a general model for all the case study sites is less feasible due to the complex physical and social environments. Practical models for certain type of urban open spaces are more reliable. The performance of acoustic comfort models is considerably better than that of sound level models. It is also found that the key variables to determine the prediction performance of sound preference models are sound meanings and the sounds' physical and psychological characteristics. Furthermore, the prediction maps based on ANN models' outputsú have been successfully produced in presenting the potential users' appraisals of a soundscape in developing urban open spaces.

This thesis examines the work of the Belfast-based civil engineering and architectural practice Young & Mackenzie, from its establishment in c. 1850 to the retirement of its third principal, J.R. Young, c.l950. It demonstrates the significance of the firm in the history of architecture in Ulster during the period and through the enquiry, explores the development of the built environment in the North of Ireland, especially in' Belfast. It is also an examination of the workings of a prolific architectural firm over 100 years - it was Ulster's longest-lasting such business and family dynasty - as well as the lives of its key players as figures of interest in their own rights. It is a piece of fundamental historical research from original sources, drawing substantially on the firm's surviving archival records, Young family papers and artefacts, and critical analysis of the buildings themselves, either from scrutiny in the field or from plans/drawings/photographs. The thesis looks at the principals, the firm's history, and work across the following sectors: commercial and industrial buildings, ecclesiastical buildings, domestic and 'c residential buildings and institutional buildings. There is a separate chapter on the Presbyterian Assembly Buildings - a major landmark in Belfast. The firm is shown to have been significantly locked into working relationships with important institutions such as the Presbyterian Church (and thereby many of its congregations), the Belfast Board of Guardians and the Royal Victoria Hospital, as well as significant businessmen. It was responsible for many of the largest buildings in Belfast, from department stores such as Robinson & Cleaver's and Anderson & McAuley's to financial firms such as the Ocean Accident Guarantee Company and the Scottish Provident Insurance Corporation. The firm was, therefore, a major contributor to giving the fabric of central Belfast urban substance and built presence.

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This thesis focuses on the question 'What is meant by "urban capacity"?' This is an increasingly important question as the government claims that the concept, through its technical study -the urban capacity study- is central to the planning for housing process, with this new technical study forming the foundation on which local authorities and regional authorities will increasingly develop their housing policy. However, the concept of 'urban capacity' is relatively new, and is still evolving. Therefore the meaning of urban capacity is important for processes of planning; but it is also a key idea driving development policy, ultimately determining where houses are built, the form they are likely to take, and the way that people in the future are likely to live. The urban capacity literature suggested that the concept had moved from being linked primarily to environmental capacity to being linked primarily to planning for housing provision, establishing the need to investigate the concept's evolution in meaning. To investigate this evolution, two descriptive concept-models were developed, and the research identified three windows that gave insight into the construction of the concept of urban capacity and its usage. These three windows were: firstly, government texts to explore how urban capacity was argued; secondly, a survey of urban capacity studies to investigate how urban capacity was assessed and the implications of the methods on the meaning of the concept; thirdly, a case study of South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council, the co-sponsor to this research, to investigate how the concept and urban capacity studies were used at the local level. This thesis concludes that the concept of urban capacity has indeed evolved; but that this evolution is more complicated than it may at first appear, and that this is likely to have implications for future policy-makers.

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La thèse porte sur l'utilisation du système d'information géographique (SIG) pour la construction du système d'information urbaine pour les villes durables et intelligentes. Le travail comprend à la fois le développement d'une méthodologie pour la construction du système d'information urbain basé sur le SIG et son application sur un démonstrateur à grande échelle de la ville intelligente et durable (projet SunRise Smart City).La thèse comporte quatre parties :La première partie comporte une analyse bibliographique des travaux réalisés sur les thèmes relatifs à ce travail de thèse à savoir : l'émergence de la ville, les concepts de Ville Durable et de Ville Intelligent, le système d'information géographique (SIG) et son application sur l’environnement urbain.Le deuxième chapitre présente l'application du SIG pour la construction du système d'information urbaine du campus scientifique de l'Université de Lille, qui est utilisé comme site de démonstration pour le projet « SunRise Smart City ». Le système d'informations urbaines comprend des informations sur les bâtiments du campus, ainsi que les réseaux urbains.Le troisième chapitre présente l'utilisation du SIG pour la visualisation des données dynamiques des réseaux urbains, qui sont collectées par des capteurs intelligents. Le chapitre présente la méthodologie suivie pour la visualisation dynamique de ces données, ainsi que l'application de cette méthode sur les données de consommation d'eau.Le dernier chapitre présente l'utilisation du BIM dans le système d'information urbain SunRise. La méthodologie est d'abord présentée, puis elle est appliquée sur un bâtiment du campus. / The thesis concerns the use of the Geographic information system (GIS) for the construction of urban information system for Sustainable and Smart Cities. The work includes both the development of a methodology for the construction of the GIS-based urban information system and its application on to the large-scale demonstrator of the Smart and Sustainable City (SunRise Smart City).The thesis is composed of four parts. The first part includes a state of the art on the emergence of the Smart City Concept and the achievements in this area. It also presents the Geographic Information System (GIS) and its use in both environmental and urban areas.The second chapter presents the application of the GIS for the construction of the Urban Information System of the Scientific Campus of the University of Lille, which is used as a demonstration site for the project SunRise Smart City. The urban information system includes information about the campus buildings as well as the urban networks. The third chapter presents the use of the GIS for the visualization of dynamic data concerning urban networks, which is collected by smart sensors. The chapter presents the methodology followed for the dynamic data visualization as well as the application of this methodology on the water consumption data.The last chapter presents the use of the BIM in the SunRise urban information system for the management of buildings. The methodology is first presented then it is applied to a building of the Campus.

La ville de Bucarest est, depuis 25 ans, mitigée entre deux réalités urbaines qui se superposent : les résultats de la planification communiste – toujours fort visibles dans le tissu urbain – et l’approche contemporaine, qui essaie de s’adapter et de transformer l’ancien bâti (Vanau, G., 2010, Ticana, N., 2013, Ianos, I., 2004, Ioja, C., 2011, Erdeli, G., Nae, M., 2008, etc.). Cette nouvelle vision de la ville et façon de la créer mène à un questionnement : comment est-ce que cette ville évolue-t-elle actuellement ? Qui maitrise son développement et qui s’implique dans sa construction ? Est-ce que les éléments qui composent le cadre règlementaire, légal, opérationnel de ce développement sont capables de répondre aux besoins des habitants et aux attentes européennes ?Afin de répondre à ce questionnement, notre recherche vise à comprendre la dynamique de développement urbain à Bucarest, en s’axant sur trois domaines qui, à notre avis, ont une influence accrue sur la construction de la ville d’après 1989 : la croissance des zones résidentielles, les nouveaux grands espaces commerciaux et de bureaux et enfin le réseau de transport et mobilité urbaine. L’échelle d’analyse part du cadre européen, par l’étude de plusieurs capitales postsocialistes, pour se concentrer sur notamment la ville de Bucarest, dans son territoire de soutien. La démarche prend en compte les politiques, les outils et les acteurs qui s’impliquent dans les domaines ciblés, ainsi que les résultats des dernières deux décennies d’évolution urbaine. / The city of Bucharest has been, for the past 25 years, torn between two overlapping urban realities: the results of communist planning - still very visible in the urban fabric - and the contemporary approach, which tries to adapt to, but also to transform the existing built areas (Vanau, G., 2010 Ticana, N., 2013, Ianos, I., 2004 Ioja, C., 2011 Erdeli, G., Nae M., 2008, etc.). This new vision of the city and the process of its “creation” lead to several questions: how is the city changing now ? Who masters its development and who is involved in its construction? Are the components of the regulatory, legal, operational frameworks of this development able to meet both the needs of the residents and the European expectations ? In order to answer these questions, our research aims at understanding the dynamics of Bucharest’s urban development, by focusing on three domains which, in our opinion, have a major influence on the development of the city after 1989: the growth of residential areas, the new commercial and office spaces and, finally, the transportation system and urban mobility. The analysis ranges from the European framework, through the study of several post-socialist capitals to the capital city of Bucharest within its territory. The approach takes into account the policies, tools and actors related to our targeted domains, as well as the results of the last two decades of urban evolution.